Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

It is puzzling how President Mnangagwa is now flinching from making the bold decisions that are needed to start Zimbabwe on a path to recovery. The most glaring dropping of the ball is the refusal or reluctance to demonetise the Bond Note. It can only be because he wants to protect and encourage corruption and black market activity, fuellled by a criminally negligent Dr Mangudya at the RBZ President Emmerson Mnangagwa is in the process of undoing an image that he had carefully built up since November last year and which had brought him massive support and goodwill that he should have capitalised on to correct market sentiment. But he has dropped the ball so massively that even his own supporters are beginning to have second thoughts. They are beginning to think that there was nothing to all the talk and display of resolve except a desire to win the election and become President. Fundamentally, the problem with Zimbabwe at the moment is the complete lack of confidence in Pre...

President Mugabe's eldest child, Bona Mugabe, is seen here greeting Vice Presidents Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi & their wives at President Mnangagwa's inauguration ceremony at the National Sports Stadium in Harare today President Robert Mugabe was not in Singapore today. He was at home. For a man his age, he is in remarkably good health, even though he sent a letter to the inauguration, read by President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the National Sports Stadium today, pleading ill-health. The letter was not a sign that Mugabe has forgiven Mnangagwa and Chiwenga. No. Those present at the Blue Roof when the decision was made are clear what Bona and her husband's presence at Mnangagwa's inauguration today was all about. As an aside, despite what the former president is accused of having done to this fellow citizens and to the country, some of us were amazed at the spontaneous and deafening applause that echoed through the National Sports Stadium in Harare today wh...

Zimbabweans owe a huge debt of gratitude to Morgan Tsvangirai for the fact that it is now impossible to rig elections in Zimbabwe. We will explain today why. The mistake Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance made this time around was using the pre-reform tactics to fight this election instead of adapting to the news circumstances. It is the main reason we kept saying Chamisa had brought a knife to a gunfight. But let's look at why it is now impossible to rig an election in Zimbabwe and why this last election also falls into this category of "impossible to rig". It is all about knowing how to use the tools Tsvangirai gave us as Zimbabwe. All ballot paper books printed have serial numbers. Each ballot paper has a serial number. This is incredibly important for any party that does not trust the process, especially combined with the presence of their agent at the polling station throughout voting. Each party has a polling agent at every polling station in Zimbabwe. ...

On 15 July this year, a full two weeks before the 2018 harmonised election in Zimbabwe, we warned on this blog that Nelson Chamisa was running a criminal election campaign by neglecting the parliamentary poll and focusing only on his presidential ambitions.  ZANU PF subsequently won a two-thirds majority in parliament and there is now talk of them changing the constitution to make 55 the minimum age for anyone to qualify to run for the presidency of Zimbabwe. You will find no sympathy here for the position the MDC finds itself in as a result of this. When we wrote that article, we were insulted by the usual suspects, MDC and Chamisa cult followers for whom any constructive criticism of their cult leader is heresy. It bears repeating that not everyone who criticises you is your enemy. But the opposition in Zimbabwe believes it is all knowing, is guided mostly by its uneducated, shallow-thinking support base that can not think beyond its next hunger pains. ...

A private vehicle burns after being torched by MDC protestors in Harare this past week, before soldiers moved in to quell the situation It is a common and ancient saying in Zimbabwe. Much like the english speak of cutting off one's nose in order to spite one's face: "burning the house down to flush out a rat". The situation in Zimbabwe is straightforward: Nelson Chamisa narrowly lost the election to Emmerson Mnangagwa. After this, he and Tendai Biti sent drunk youths into Harare City Centre. They were armed with stone, iron bars and fire. They smashed shops. They burnt cars. But the plan was much worse than this. The reason you are not hearing greater condemnation of government's heavy-handedness, the reason why some people appear "shocked" that the "world is remaining silent" in the face of this is simple enough: The government has concrete evidence that it has shared with foreign governments about the actual plan by Nelson C...

By 2:30a.m. Monday morning, we are informed Vice President Chiwenga was able to relax on the basis that the election was pretty much in the bag. Was he correct? Let's break it down? Nelson Chamisa is almost certain to do better than Morgan Tsvangirai did in 2013, especially in the urban, peri-urban and growth point areas. But we are likely not to get anything resembling the 2008 results. No GNU is in the offing, unless it is on the Mnangagwa's terms, with Nelson Chamisa as a quarrelsome supplicant. The root of this scenario is the failure by the NPF and Thokozani Khupe to be factors in this election. Mnangagwa is doing better than most would have expected in the urban constituencies and wards. Nelson Chamisa has managed to consolidate the vote of the opposition around his presidential ambitions here. But the opposition numbers have never managed to overwhelm ZANU PF nationally, even when consolidated. It may not look like it, but apathy also played a part. Apath...

Former President Robert Mugabe endorsing Nelson Chamisa today his Blue Roof mansion under the watchful eyes of Grace Mugabe and his first born, Bona Chikore. The choreographed dance between Nelson Chamisa and Robert Mugabe, which started on this last Saturday, came out in the open on Sunday. The two scheduled simultaneous press conferences in anticipation of each other's big reveals. It is a classic Jonathan Moyo move, designed for nothing else but to give the impression of momentum. What this move on Sunday telegraphs is an alarming state of affairs in the opposition camp. Because, you see, this is an extreme move. In other words, a last-ditch effort. One does not go broke unless one knows they have nothing left to lose. Desperate times, they say. Desperate measures. The strategy's risks are not lost on a man of the smarts and intelligence of Nelson Chamisa. Not at all. So, knowing this, aware of the fire-breathing electoral dragons that live down this road, Ne...

Birds of a feather? Whoever advised Nelson Chamisa to declare open support for Mugabe today at his crossover rally is evil. If it was Chamisa's own idea, well, then he has authored the burial of his own political career. People who marched in November last year to celebrate the fall of Mugabe are apparently supposed to cheer and be happy that Nelson Chamisa has decided that Mugabe is a good guy after all, his policies were spot on and should play a role in the future of the country if Nelson Chamisa wins the elections. Addressing the crowd at his rally earlier today, the last day of political campaigning as mandated by law, Chamisa directly said, Mugabe, "who was spurned and rejected is the one I will take and start a love affair with." In Shona, so that we have no doubt at all about his intent or his meaning, he said, " Wacho anenge arambwa iyeye ndiye wandinotora ndodanana naye." Ok. This level of lack of judgement has us stumped. For the longest...

All the drama that Nelson Chamisa is currently engaged is completely unnecessary and utterly self-defeating. The MDC Alliance and all the opposition candidates are well placed to stop any supposed rigging without damaging the institutions of our country that are needed to make sure democracy endures and Zimbabwe becomes prosperous. And stopping any potential rigging is so easy one now understands why most observers are now of the view that Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance are cry-babies who do not want to go elections at all for fear of a loss and to push for a non-elected GNU. ZEC has said that the Voters' Roll they gave out is clean, it has not ghosts on it. Chamisa and his people do not believe them. Fine. Skepticism is a good thing. But there is a better and more ironclad way to not only check this, but also protect the vote of Zimbabweans. Instead of insulting the ZEC Chair, alarming and demotivating his supporters will constant talk of a basically already-stolen vot...

Observers say they are stunned at the complete absence of any strategy or campaign at the constituency level by Nelson Chamisa's MDC Alliance. It is a criminal neglect of a key pillar of his success as a presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa, the presidential candidate of the MDC Alliance so carefully and thoughtfully put together by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, is running an utterly criminal election campaign that focuses solely and almost entirely on his own personal ambition only. Chamisa has convinced all watchers that he does not believe in the Alliance he purports to lead. Evidence of this is scattered all over the electoral landscape like bodies on a battlefield. Parliamentary candidates for the Alliance have been neglected and their dejection is on full display around Zimbabwe, in contrast with the candidates of Khupe's MDC and Mnangagwa's ZANU PF. Even independents like Fadzai Mahere in Mt Pleasent are outgunning Alliance candidates in terms of energy, ...

This qualifies as one of the top of the images from the 2018 Zimbabwean election. The various Mapostori Christian sects in Zimbabwe number more than a million. The Johanne Marange sect, whose Passover celebrations President Mnangagwa is seen here attending is by far the largest, followed by the Masowe sect. Now, just wondering: we all know about the rivalry between these two sects and the many others scattered all over Zimbabwe. Does this mean the other sects will now boycott Mnangagwa and vote someone else because they hate the Marange faction? Not entirely sure if all of them are registered to vote, but this sect has become a stomping ground for ZANU PF leaders and they have tended to support the ruling party. Getting this bloc to support you and vote for you is a prize coveted by every politician in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa, seen here sitting right in the middle of the throng, sitting on the dusty ground like everybody else, has taken this to another level. Mugabe and Chiwen...

JUSTICE Chigumba, the ZEC Chair, briefing observers at the Harare International Conference Centre earlier today, doubled down on a trend of refusing or failing the transparency test. She is within the law on everything she has done, but ignoring the key test of transparency impacts massively on the credibility of this poll, to the detriment of whoever end up winning this election. We have always defended ZEC against the baseless accusation thrown against them by an opposition that is bent discrediting the election in the hope of it being declared not free and fair and thereby, hopefully, forcing a Government of National Unity with Nelson Chamisa as Prime Minister, but the needless lack of transparency by the electoral body is now wildly carvoting in sabotage territory. Take Justice Chigumba's briefing with Observers today at the Harare International Conference Centre. One thing that has raised alarm bells is her announcement that the electoral body will not be using indeli...

Welshman Ncube of the MDC Alliance, at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo today, where police voted today in an incident made a scandal only by the fact that ZEC appeared not to know that ballot papers that it should be in charge of were now in Bulawayo, at a police camp   It is a blunder of monumental proportions, no doubt and we do not need to recount to you what transpired at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo. But just in case you have been on Mars today, here goes: An alert was sent to the MDC Alliance by a policeman at Ross Camp saying the policemen there were being "forced" to vote in the presence of their superiors and crying out for help. The Alliance immediately broadcast the alert across social media. The Acting Chief Elections Officer for ZEC denied that there was any voting taking place, saying he was still processing postal vote applications. Videos and images soon emerged showing that there had indeed been voting at that Camp and ZEC Commissioners scrambled t...

Things are getting very interesting now although I doubt Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance will be amused. It's stunning, I tell you. Although Nelson Chamisa believes he is going to meet Justice Chigumba tomorrow (Thursday July 12 2018), the ZEC Chair has decided that neither she nor her Commissioners will meet the opposition leader or any of his cronies. In a heated phone call today with Justice Minister Ziyambi, Chigumba threatened to seek a court injunction barring the Alliance from "harassing" ZEC and disrupting, interrupting and impeding the implementation of its mandate at law. The Justice Minister made it clear that he would not support that move, although he could not stop the ZEC Chair from proceeding with the action if she thought it suitable. He even went so far as to declare that his government would publicly distance itself from the move if it happens, just to register the position of government, since he could not order to proceed or not. After ...

Nelson Chamisa, it turns out, is playing straight into the hands of ZANU PF with his constant agitation around the voters' roll and the ballot paper. This was revealed to us yesterday, Sunday, 08 July, entirely by accident. We were not supposed to hear what we are about to tell you and I hope we will not get into trouble for it! ZANU PF, like the Republicans in the USA, the Tories in the UK and many other parts of the world, knows that one of the most effective ways to "rig" an election is to ensure that your opponents' supporters do not show up on voting day. It is called voter suppression. It is a micro strategy that the Republicans used in the USA for decades before the Dems and the Independents woke up to what was happening (and it involved manipulating local laws to demand the sort of ID documents the Republicans knew Democratic supporters were unlikely to have). Demotivating MDC supporters is ZANU PF's number one prize, and Nelson Chamisa and hi...